


Phantasmagoria

by last_illusions (injured_eternity)



Category: CSI: NY
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-24
Updated: 2006-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-17 09:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/injured_eternity/pseuds/last_illusions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Post s3] She made a deal with the Devil for an empty IOU. Mac/Peyton, MS angst, response to S3 rumours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phantasmagoria

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: 1x23 ["What You See Is What You See"]

As the grating insistence of the alarm beat its way through her sleep-hazed mind, Stella Bonasera leaned over and slapped the offensive device off.

 _I hate mornings._ The petulant thought ran through her mind, though it wasn’t quite true—she was very much prone to staying up late and settling into Manhattan at night, regardless of whether she spent it on the vivid streets or in her apartment, but she still enjoyed the mornings, watching the sun come up over the city from her balcony. It was the getting up part that put a damper on things.

With a sigh, she tossed back the down comforter, feeling the chill of the approaching fall in the room that was now substantially colder to wake up to than it had been a month ago in July. Grabbing the light summer robe she had thrown across the chair in her bedroom, she slipped into it, fully intent upon getting her morning cup of coffee before she even _thought_ about getting ready for work. As she made her way to her patio doors, steaming mug grasped in her hands, the waking city was laid bare before her eyes, and the Brooklyn Bridge rose over the river, awake when even the city that never slept had settled back for a few precious moments.

And yet, despite the normal, comforting silence that pervaded her mornings, she couldn’t shake the lingering feeling that something was different—that something about the day would change things. Nor could she pinpoint the exactness of it—it wasn’t the feeling of forgetting a date of some sort, like a birthday or an anniversary, and there was nothing distinctly negative about it yet, but it was there, nagging at her like a name on the tip of her tongue that she just couldn’t quite remember.

Out of habit, she did a mental run-through of dates. It wasn’t Mac’s birthday—she knew it was in October, and not just because his first without Claire had put both of them on the brink—and she was certain it wasn’t someone else’s in the lab. Or maybe she was losing her memory, which was, she supposed, an entirely viable explanation… She had no appointments that she knew of that day, had done her shopping the day before, and knew perfectly well that she was meeting the rest of the team for dinner that night. Pausing at that, she wondered for a moment if she’d remembered to pass on the invitation to Mac.

“Ask Mac, would you?” Danny had told her, and she’d raised an eyebrow at him.

“Why me? You’re working with him today,” she’d pointed out, since the man in question had just given out assignments.

A roll of his eyes had answered her, but, as if in case she hadn’t caught that, he’d remarked, “Yeah, but if you ask ‘im, he might actually _go_.”

And then he’d quite conveniently disappeared, leaving Stella standing in the middle of the hall staring after him, unsure of whether to be mad or simply amused. Since he’d long since left, she’d settled on amused, promising herself that she’d give him hell for it later anyway. But she _had_ invited Mac—she clearly remembered asking him later that day in the lab, pointing at the microscope and telling him to look through it as she interrupted her own sentence to do it, so she _had_ asked him. Fine.

Shaking her head at herself suddenly, her movement reminiscent of a dog shaking the water from his coat, she brushed the thoughts away and headed back into her bedroom to get ready. Ten minutes and a light makeup application later, she pulled her hair back in a clip and threaded on a pair of earrings, pulling on black slacks and the short-sleeved lavender sweater she loved wearing. Accompanied by her trademark heels, she looked substantially more like herself than she had half-an-hour ago, but then again, _no one_ looked normal when they woke up. Unless, that is, that person was Mac Taylor and slept for all of five minutes a night while sitting in a chair, if he slept at all.

She finished off her coffee, rinsed out the mug and dumped it in the sink, then grabbed her purse and keys before running out the door. After fighting through morning traffic, she somehow arrived at the lab on time.

“You been here all night?” she teased, stepping into Mac’s office first.

Detective Mac Taylor looked up with a slight smile. “Good morning to you, too, Stella.”

“Oh, you know it.” She seated herself across from him, leaning back in the leather chair. “What’ve we got this morning?”

Immediately back to business, he turned to the pile of folders at hand. “Double homicide in Queens, B & E triple homicide and robbery up in Bronx.”

“Perps were busy last night,” she remarked dryly.

“You’re telling me. I’m putting Lindsay and Danny with Hawkes on the Queens case, and Thacker’s working that one, so you and I are with Flack and Detective Angell in Bronx.”

Laying a hand against her heart dramatically, she sighed. “A robbery and triple homicide at seven in the morning, and it isn’t even my birthday!”

That drew a chuckle from her partner, and he shrugged. “I give it to the best. The new ME should be thrilled by this for an initiation.”

“We’ve got a new ME?” Now _this_ was news, and Stella was fairly certain she hadn’t heard about this earlier.

“Yeah—you remember… Peyton Driscoll?”

Was it just her imagination, or had he hesitated slightly before saying her name? Shrugging mentally, she nodded. “She was working with Hawkes for awhile, and then left to teach, right?”

“Uh-huh. She just came back, since Sid seemed a little overworked.”

“Isn’t he on vacation right now?”

“Two weeks.”

She nodded pensively. “So is it just me, or did I not hear anything about Peyton coming back?”

“You didn’t.” Did Mac Taylor actually look _nervous_?? “No one was sure if it would work out on both ends, so we weren’t saying anything until we knew—today’s her first official day in.”

“Fair enough,” she shrugged. “Let me grab my kit, and I’ll meet you in the garage?”

“Sure—I’ll be there in ten.”

With another nod, she left his office, wondering vaguely why the name Peyton Driscoll was leaving a strange taste in her mouth.

( _Phantasmagoria_ )

The crime scene was, as expected, insane. The head clerk, the owner, and the secretary of Darman’s Pharmaceutical had been gunned down in the main office, a half-hour before they’d been scheduled to open, the safes had been robbed of nearly ten million dollars, and another several million in prescription drugs had been taken from the rear storeroom. Both the clerk and the secretary had been shot four times, taking two to the head and two to the heart, apparently while standing in the front lobby talking. The owner was found slumped over his desk one floor up, cuffed to his chair with four bullets and a knife buried in his chest. There was blood everywhere, despite the fact that only one bullet had been a through-and-through on each victim.

“Jason Darman, owner of Darman’s Pharmaceutical, shot four times in the chest,” Detective Jennifer Angell informed them as Flack stood back, letting her take the lead on her first substantial case. “Forty-six, divorced from a Marcy Darman—she kept his name after the divorce, no children.”

Turning a page, she continued, “Jessica Fieldman, twenty-eight, Darman’s personal secretary. Took two bullets to the chest, two to the head. David Endleton, recently promoted to head clerk, took the same.”

Looking around the scene as he pulled on gloves, Mac glanced at the young detective. “Broke the doors?”

She nodded. “The alarms went off—the silent ones that go straight to the company—and BAE Alarms called dispatch this morning at six twenty-three on the dot, but the place was clear when they got here. Guess that’s why glass doors are a bad idea.”

After doing a preliminary examination of the lobby, Mac and Stella both headed up to the owner’s office.

“That sweet smell—chloroform,” she told him, pointing to a rag on the floor, seemingly kicked halfway under the desk by someone in a hurry.

“No drag marks—if there was someone else, he or she was carried out.” Mac gestured to the door that opened to the outer stairs. “Knocking him out to kill him makes no sense.”

Fingerprinting the door handle, Stella pulled off two clear prints and pulled it open. “No sign of forced entry—no marks on the outside of the door, lock’s not broken.”

“We’ll bag and tag downstairs, then come back up here,” Mac said finally. “ME should be here by now.” Back in the lobby, the ME was indeed on scene. “Got a TOD on our victims?”

“Hi Mac; good to see you again, Stella,” the slender brunette nodded from her place kneeling by the secretary. “TOD for the secretary is 6:20, and about ten minutes later for the clerk—I won’t know which shot was first until after the post.”

“We know, Peyton,” Mac answered, with something akin to a smile, and when she sent one back at him, Stella couldn’t help raising her brows slightly, though she said nothing.

“Sorry; keep forgetting I’m not lecturing forensics nuts at Uni,” she chuckled slightly. “I’ll get these two bagged and go up to take a look at Darman.”

“Thanks,” he nodded, and his partner shot a speculative look at him, though if he noticed, he gave no indication, and they both began the tedious process of bagging the evidence.

( _Phantasmagoria_ )

Four hours later, Stella was waiting for AFIS to work a miracle for them when Mac came in.

“Got anything?”

“Not yet,” she admitted. “DNA’s running blood tests on all three vics, and I’m crossing my fingers here.” She gestured vaguely at the computer screen, then took advantage of the surprisingly empty lab to grill Mac. “What’s up with you and Peyton?”

The odd feeling that had been poking at her that morning returned full force as Mac’s expression took on a distinct deer-in-the-headlights look, and this time there was definitely something negative about it.

“What do you mean?”

A noncommittal shrug came in answer. “You’re acting weird—have been since you told me she was back this morning, and then at the crime scene.”

He returned her shrug. “Nothing that I know of,” he said, and though her mind told her he was lying, he changed the subject before she could press the matter. “I spoke to the ex-wife, though, and she claims not to have seen him for two months.”

“She’d better rethink that one,” Stella answered, pointing at the screen. “Her fingerprint was on Darman’s office door handle—the outer door. Let’s go see what Jane has to say about those blood tests before we talk to her again.”

Sure enough, the tox screens came back: chloroform was absent in the clerk’s blood—based on a previous case several years ago, both Mac and Stella were now thinking jealous ex. In Autopsy, Peyton gave her own reports.

“Here’s the file,” she added, handing the folder over to Mac, and his fingers brushed hers as he took it—perhaps longer than was necessary. “With Darman, he was shot first—the knife was a finishing touch of sorts. Kill shot shredded the aorta.” She handed three envelopes to Stella, adding, “Bullets from your three. Secretary was killed by a shot to the head—bullet ricocheted inside her skull; clerk was killed by the through-and-through—went straight through the left atrium and exited. He also had sex several hours before he died.”

“Get a sample?”

“Right here,” Peyton answered, handing Mac a swab. “Might get lucky.”

“Perps are just unlucky.”

Another hour pointed directly at the ex-wife, and when both CODIS and IBIN turned up hits on Marcy Darman’s DNA, as well as a nine mil registered to her, Stella shook her head. “Thank you for being stupid,” she remarked, drawing a grin from Mac.

“Angell’s bringing her in now,” he told her. “Meet me in interrogation in ten minutes.”

She merely nodded in response, watching him go.

And yet another hour later, Marcy Darman was arrested on two charges of first-degree murder. She admitted to having an affair with David Endleton, saying they’d planned both Darman’s murder and the robbery, planning to live off of the millions stolen from the company. The secretary shouldn’t have been there, but they couldn’t risk letting her go, so she’d been knocked out with chloroform in the only act of mercy the case possessed. And when David had panicked, having second thoughts, Marcy had tried to convince him otherwise. He’d grabbed the gun from her, it had gone off, and he’d effectively shot himself in the head, but she’d finished him off with three more shots, furious that he’d second-guessed her and sick of men in general.

Watching her walk away, neither Mac nor Stella were at all sorry to see her go, though the case bore disturbing similarities to one several years ago. Nonetheless, both left to straighten out the required paperwork, and it was hours before they finished.

She dropped her file off in Mac’s office, which was empty, to her surprise, and made to leave, stepping into the locker room to grab her things when she heard Mac’s voice.

“Ah…” he groaned. “Another day—we’re the last ones here.”

 _No, you’re not_ , Stella thought sharply, suddenly grateful for the recently oiled hinges on the locker room door.

“How’d it go?” Peyton’s light tones drifted through the almost empty room.

“Not bad—you?”

“Same—no one saw me with you long enough to even consider it.”

“Stella came close,” he admitted, “at the crime scene this morning.”

“You tell her?”

“No—she asked if there was something going on, and I said no.”

A low chuckle accompanied her answer. “She’s smart, Mac—wouldn’t surprise me if she’s the first to figure it out, no matter how careful we are.”

“Worried?”

“No.” Silence fell, and Stella almost left, her heart in her throat, but Peyton spoke again. “One year tomorrow.”

 _One year??_ She bit down hard on her lip to keep from yelling the words aloud. One year, and she’d never noticed Mac was seeing someone?

“I know—did you think I’d forget the day of my first date with the woman I love?”

His tone was amused, and she could just picture that quirky little half-smile of his.

“Of course not. Dinner at home? I’ll cook something… if I can get out of here on time…”

“You can,” Mac chuckled. “I say so.”

“Ah, there _was_ a reason I fell in love with you.”

“Did you doubt it?”

A low timbre that Stella had only heard him use with Claire crept into his voice, and she couldn’t bite back the jealousy this time.

She slipped away, not wanting to hear more, knowing they hadn’t realized she was there, and cursing herself for hoping. Never had she been stupid enough to consider pushing a relationship on Mac, but in the back of her mind, the possibility had arisen a few years after Claire had died. When he had finally given in to a date two years ago with the woman from the café, she’d been hopeful—perhaps ridiculously so. She loved Mac to death—the man had been her partner and friend for twelve years now—but she’d never, never acknowledged that perhaps that love had hoped for more. Never, until she’d heard those words from him, aimed at another woman. Now she knew she’d been right earlier in thinking something was going on between Mac and Peyton, but she’d never considered it could be something like _that_.

Though she would never know how she’d gotten to her car, she found herself in the driver’s seat, doors locked. Bracing her hands against the wheel, she told herself she wasn’t being unreasonable, that it would have hurt even if she hadn’t thought there could be more between them. She wasn’t asking him to get down on his knees and propose; as a friend, as someone who had been his support through purgatory, she would have thought he’d have mentioned that he was seeing someone.

“It’s your own fault.” The words sounded hollow and much too loud in the stillness of her car. “It’s your own fault, and you know it. Hope is the Devil’s tool.”

And so it was—hope had led her to Hell and back too many times. She’d hoped for years that her parents would come and take her from St. Basil’s; she’d hoped for a normal childhood so badly it hurt. She’d hoped that she’d find that one person who would be her counterpart, who would understand her, and each time it had ended brutally—Frankie had been the absolute height of it all. She’d hoped that, by taking this job, she could maybe do more to prevent death, and all she did was provide closure for the families ravaged by it, saving so few in direct consequence. She should have learned by now, but still she hadn’t. Now she was paying the price.

In more ways than one, she’d made a semi-subconscious deal with the Devil for an empty IOU, and Mephistopheles had been sent to take her heart in payment.

  
 _Finis._

 _Feedback is always appreciated._


End file.
